I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and to see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die to discover that I had not lived.I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite neccessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meaness of it, and publish its meaness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.

Henry David Thoreau